Homosexuals in government, 1950

Mr. MILLER of Nebraska. Mr. Chairman, I realize that I am
discussing a very
delicate subject I cannot lay the bones
bare like I could before medical colleagues. I would like to strip the fetid,
stinking flesh off of this skeleton of homosexuality and tell my colleagues of the
House some of the facts of nature. I
cannot expose all the putrid facts as it
would offend the sensibilities of some of
you. It will be necessary to skirt some
of the edges, and I use certain Latin
terms to describe some of these individuals. Make no mistake several thousand,
according to police records, are now employed by the Federal Government.

I offer this amendment to the Vorys
amendment in good faith. Recently the
spotlight of publicity has been focused
not only upon the State Department but
upon the Department of Commerce because of homosexuals being employed in
these and other departments of Government. Recently Mr. Peurifoy, of the
State Department, said he had allowed
91 individuals in the State Department
to resign because they were homosexuals.
Now they are like birds of a feather, they
flock together. Where did they go?

You must know what a homosexual is.
It is amazing that in the Capital City of
Washington we are plagued with such a
large group of those individuals. Washington attracts many lovely folks. The
sex crimes in the city are many.

In the Eightieth Congress I was the
author of the sex pervert bill that passed
this Congress and is now a law in the
District of Columbia. It can confine
some of these people in St. Elizabeths
Hospital for treatment. They are the sex
perverts. Some of them are more to be
pitied than condemned, because in many
it is a pathological condition, very much
like the kleptomaniac who must go out
and steal, he has that urge; or like the
pyromaniac, who goes to bed and wakes
up in the middle of the night with an
urge to go out and set a fire. He does
that. Some of these homosexuals are in
that class. Remember there were 91 of
them dismissed in the State Department.
That is a small percentage of those employed in Government. We learned 2
years ago that there were around 4,000
homosexuals in the District. The Police
Department the other day said there
were between five and six thousand in
Washington who are active and that 75
percent were in Government employment. There are places in Washington
where they gather for the purpose of sex
orgies, where they worship at the cesspool
and flesh pots of iniquity. There is a restaurant downtown where you will find
male prostitutes. They solicit business
for other male customers. They are
pimps and undesirable characters. You
will find odd words in the vocabulary of
the homosexual. There are many types
such as the necrophalia, fettichism, pygmalionism, fellatios,
cunnilinguist, sodomatic, pederasty, saphism, sadism, and
masochist. Indeed, there are many
methods of practices among the homosexuals. You will find those people using
the words as, "He is a fish. He is a bull-dicker. He is mamma and he is papa,
and punk, and pimp." Yes; in one of
our prominent restaurants rug parties
and sex orgies go on. Some of those
people have been in the State Department, and I understand some of them
are now in the other departments. The
91 who were permitted to resign have
gone some place, and, like birds of a
feather, they flock together. Those people like to be known to each other. They
have signs used on streetcars and in
public places to call attention to others
of like mind. Their rug and fairy parties
are elaborate.

So I offer this amendment, and when
the time comes for voting upon it, I hope
that no one will object. I sometimes
wonder how many of these homosexuals
have had a part in shaping our foreign
policy. How many have been in sensitive positions and subject to blackmail.
It is a known fact that homosexuality
goes back to the Orientals, lone before
the time of Confucius; that the Russians
are strong believers in homosexuality,
and that those same people are able to
get into the State Department and get
somebody in their embrace, and once they
are in their embrace, fearing blackmail,
will make them go to any extent. Perhaps
if all the facts were known these
same homosexuals have been used by the
Communists.

I realize that there is some physical
danger to anyone exposing all of the details and nastiness of homosexuality, because some of these people are dangerous. They will go to any limit. These
homosexuals have strong emotions. They
are not to be trusted and when blackmail threatens they are a dangerous
group.

The Army at one time gave these individuals a dishonorable discharge and
later changed the type of discharge.
They are not knowingly kept in Army
service. They should not be employed
in Government. I trust both sides of
the aisle will support the amendment.

Page 5401-5402

Mr. DONDERO. Was there any evidence or testimony before the
gentleman's committee with respect to the
number of people who were separated
from the service in the Department of
State who had later acquired positions
in other departments of Government? I
refer to those whose employment was
considered a security risk. Was anything
said before your committee on that subject?

Mr. CLEVENGER. I will say to the
gentleman, I brought that question up
a year ago, as to whether the other departments would be alerted so that
they might not hire these--we can name them
now--these homosexuals. Until the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr.
Peurifoy, made that word public over in the other
body, we had insufficient information so
far as the committee was concerned and
could not tell you. In reply to my question we were informed they were not,
and unofficially we were told, or at least
I was told, that they have been employed
in other sections of the Government, at
least most of them were.

Mr. DONDERO. The reason I asked
that question is that I made inquiry by
letter to find out where these people
went and whether they are now employed by our Government and I have
not yet received a reply giving me any
information on the subject.

Mr. CLEVENGER. If the gentleman
will look at the report he will find some
information on that subject.

I am going to address myself now to
conditions we have discovered in the Department of Commerce. When I asked
the security officer if he would flag them,
he said he would. I told him I was very
much afraid he could not, because of an
Executive order which was issued restricting the information being given
on these people.

The air is full of stories. The press is
full of stories. I am not passing on that.

In discussing the constitutionality of
the so-called loyalty program, John
Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, had
occasion to cite a decision of the circuit
court of appeals rendered on August 11,
1949, involving the Joint Anti-Fascist
Committee. A portion of that decision
is worthy of repetition here:

Contrary to the contentions of the committee, nothing in the Hatch Act or the
loyalty program deprives the committee or
its members of any property rights. Freedom of speech and assembly is denied no
one. Freedom of though and belief is not
impaired. Anyone is free to join the committee and give it his support and encouragement. Everyone has the constitutional
right to do these things, but no one has a
constitutional right to be a Government
employee.

For emphasis permit me to repeat the
last phrase, "but no one has a constitutional right to be a Government employee."

It seems to me that the crux of our
entire security program lies in that
phrase. It is indeed a privilege and certainly not a right to work for the Government and it is time we cleared the
air on the misconceptions of a good many
well-intentioned people who have been
misled by the propaganda of the Communist and the fellow traveler into the
belief that the burden of "proof of
qualification" lies on the employer in
this case, the Government, rather than
on the employee. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Government
has the right, nay the obligation, to set
up standards for performance of duty
not only for prospective employees but
for those already on the rolls. This
sacred obligation to the taxpayer implies the summary removal of any employee who does not measure up to these
standards, the avails and crocodile tears
of the fuzzy-minded to the contrary
notwithstanding. It is tragically true
that our present administration has
been sadly lacking in the courage or
capacity necessary to carry out these
obligations but this does not excuse, or
in no way alter or mitigate these obligations.

We have heard a great deal in recent
weeks concerning the security risks within
the Department of State and I would
like to say that while I am not familiar
with the charges being bandied about I
think the basic issue has been somewhat
obscured in the unfortunate partisanship
that has developed in this inquiry that
is of prime importance to every American,
Republican or Democrat.

The sob sisters and thumb-sucking liberals are crying for proof of disloyalty
in the form of overt acts, on any security
risks who are being removed from the
Government rolls, but shed no tears for
the lives lost as a result of the activities
of the Hiss', Coplon's, and the Wadleigh's,
all of whom would or did pass the
loyalty standards with flying colors.

I wish the American people would keep
in mind the fact that a security risk does
not have to be a member of the Communist Party or even of a Communist-front
organization. It is not only conceivable
but highly probable that many security
risks are loyal Americans; however, there
is something in their background that
represents a potential possibility that
they might succumb to conflicting emotions to the detriment of the national
security. Perhaps they have relatives
behind the iron curtain and thus would
be subject to pressure. Perhaps they are
addicted to an overindulgence in alcohol
or maybe they are just plain garrulous.
The most flagrant example is the homosexual who is subject to the most effective
blackmail. It is an established fact that
Russia makes a practice of keeping a list
of sex perverts in enemy countries and
the core of Hitler's espionage was based
on the intimidation of these unfortunate
people.

Despite this fact however, the Under
Secretary of State recently testified that
91 sex perverts had been located and
fired from the Department of State. For
this the Department must be commended. But have they gone far
enough? Newspaper accounts quote
Senate testimony indicating there are
400 more in the State Department and
4,000 in Government. Where are they?
Who hired them? Do we have a cell of
these perverts hiding around Government? Why are they not ferreted out
and dismissed? Does the Department
of State have access to information in
the files of the Washington Police Department? Are we to assume that the
State Department has a monopoly on
this problem? What are the other Departments of Government doing about
this ?

For years we had a public prejudice
against mentioning in public such loath
some diseases as gonorrhea and cancer.
In effecting cures for these maladies the
medical people recognized the first step
was in public education. These matters
were brought before the public and
frankly discussed and it was not until
then that progress was really made, It
is time to bring this homosexual problem
into the open and recognize the problem
for what it is.

The Commerce Department hearings
are somewhat enlightening in regard to
the entire security problem and I would
suggest that interested Members read
them in detail beginning on page 2260.

Here we find that the Commerce Department has not located any homosexuals in their organization. Are we to
believe that in the face of the testimony
of the District of Columbia police that
75 percent of the 4,000 perverts in the
District of Columbia are employed by the
Government, that the Department of
Commerce has none?

What is wrong with this loyalty program that does not uncover these
matters, and when it does, adopts an attitude of looking for proof of
disloyalty in the form of overt acts rather than
elements of security risk? Is it not possible for the Government to refuse employment on the grounds of lack of qualifications where risk is apparent? This
is not necessarily an indictment or conviction; it is merely the exercise of
caution for the common welfare.